For many years Christmas trees of various sizes have been used in American houses. Normally a makeshift wooden foot or a light metal mounting unit is used with varying degrees of success to mount the Christmas tree for use. Various sprays or coatings have been used to coat the needles of the tree to preserve freshness of appearance and to prevent the needles from drying out.
There exists a need for a low cost reusable mounting unit with legs adjustable to hold a tree, that may not be perfectly straight, in a desired position. Further, in many homes wherein the tree is decorated and in use for more than a few days there exists a need to maintain the tree in a fresh condition to reduce the fire hazard of drying or dried needles.
This invention addresses both needs. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, an adjustable metal strap slips through each of three U-shaped mounting pieces or clevis, each of which is pivotally connected near a mid-point with dual metal rods that connect on the other end near a mid-point of legs with a U-shaped cross section. The adjustable metal strap is rigidly attached to the tree base after positioning the mounting pieces approximately 120 degrees apart. Dual coil spring in each of the three mounting pieces interact with the rods pivotally connecting the U-shaped cross section legs and the mounting pieces to push the legs toward the tree when the unit is assembled on a tree.
The lower end of each leg is flattened to form a foot. The rods, which may be approximately 1/4" in diameter, are pivotally connected with the mounting pieces and the legs, which may be 15" to 18" long for a normal size tree. Differing sizes of units would be used for very large and very small trees but would be of the same design and operate in the same way. With the unit attached, the tree may be manually tilted and the legs adjusted to hold the tree in a desired upright position. For a tree with a perfect trunk, the tree would be exactly vertically adjusted as viewed from either side.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, a needle similar to that used to fill a basketball with air may be inserted manually in the tree at an angle to be close to the cambium layer of the tree and water under pressure is fed through the needle. Experiments have indicated that a tree will appear perfectly fresh after two weeks using this method of providing water to the tree.
In another embodiment, the same support system is used and the adjustable strap is adjusted to allow the butt end of the tree to be held in water in a relatively shallow container.